The Hindu : National : A doyen of Punjabi literature

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 01, 2005

National

National

A doyen of Punjabi literature

Staff Reporter

A passionate writer on feminist issues

Amrita Pritam

NEW DELHI: Litterateur Amrita Pritam (86), who has been bed-ridden for the past three years after she broke per pelvis bone, died at her Hauz Khas residence here on Monday afternoon. She was cremated in the evening in the presence of her family members, close relatives and friends.

Born into a Sikh family at Gujranwalan in Pakistan in 1919, Amrita Pritam breathed her last while asleep and was found dead at 2-30 p.m. by her daughter. In April 2002, she had slipped in her bathroom and broken her pelvis bone. Though operated upon, the octogenarian writer failed to respond to treatment and her health deteriorated. As a result, she had stopped writing and its first casualty was the closing down of the monthly Punjabi magazine Nagmani which she had been editing for the past 35 years.

The only child of a school teacher-poet father, Ms. Pritam lost her mother when she was only 11. She was only 16 when she got married to an editor. Moving to Delhi after the Partition, she began writing in Hindi too and worked for All India Radio till 1961.

She got divorced in 1960, roughly the time when her writings started becoming more and more feminist, a reflection of her unhappy marriage.

Referred to as the doyen of Punjabi literature who was awarded Padma Vibhushan last year, Ms. Pritam is also the first woman recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the first Punjabi woman to receive the Padma Shree. Known for her moving stories on the Partition and raising feminist issues, Ms. Pritam has to her credit 24 novels, 15 collections of short stories and 23 volumes of prose.

A recipient of the Jnanpith Award for lifetime contribution to Punjabi literature in 1982 and also five D.Litt. degrees from various institutions including Delhi, Jabalpur and Vishva Bharti University, Ms. Pritam wrote several famous novels including Pinjar, Ek Thi Saara, Kachchi Sarak, Unchaas Din and Adalat and a collection of 29 stories of love and romance Alif Laila — Hazaar Dastan. She also contributed to the Bollywood movie Pinjar, based on her book on the Partition with the same title, by writing two songs for the film.